The generic message prompt that I’d heard about a thousand times on my answering machine played. My pulse raced and the little hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up. At least I had fresh air and my favorite swing to help ease the tension of that moment.
“You have a call from,” The prompt continued but my mother’s voice came next. “Answer me!” She was trying to stand up as the firm, motherly type. Yeah—I was not buying it.
“To accept this call, press one.” Last chance to back out. My finger pressed one before my brain could tell me not to.
“Please hold for connection.” I held. “Thank you; you may begin speaking now.” The automated voice went away and the background noise kicked in.
“Baby girl—are you really there!?” My mother’s excitement was palpable. A vision of her practically bouncing around on the other end of the phone came to mind.
“Yes mom, I’m here.” From head to toe my body was in knots but I tried to keep that out of my voice.
“You are one difficult girl to get a hold of.”
“I’m sorry; it’s been crazy here.” For just a moment I saw Corey’s disapproving face in my mind but that didn’t stop me as I lit up a cigarette and took a long, deep drag. My feet slowly rose and fell moving me fractionally on the old swing.
“Isn’t it funny that after all these years you’re finally home and I’m out of town?” Out of town—yeah, if that’s what we’re calling sitting in a jail cell.
“You know I didn’t want to come back at all, but Gram needed help.” I felt the accusing knot tighten my throat.
“Oh right, for that stupid Inn.” A sulky bitter taste settled into her tone. The Inn to my mother was what meth was to me. Those were the monsters that tore our mothers from us. The one thing in this world that made you wonder which one your mother loved more.
“She fire you from the gig yet?”
Nice to know she had such confidence in me.
“No, things are going really well. Business is my strong suit so I don’t mind it.”
“Well you need to start answering my calls more often. The only person I’ve been able to talk to is mom and I would literally rather talk to anyone else besides her. But when I’m so limited, I can’t afford to be choosy.” Did that mean I was just anyone else?
“I’ll do what I can,” I responsed, as I proceeded to light up another cigarette thinking again of Corey’s displeasure hovering over me.
“I have so much to tell you about this place!” She started up and I considered taking a shot along with my smoke. My mother had always lived in her own little world, where if something didn’t directly affect her—she could’ve cared less. However, the second she’d broken a nail, you had better be ready for the ultimate drama fest. I mean hell—she was alive—and functioning—sort of, how bad could her life really be? Obviously, no one wanted to be locked in a cell but it was her choices that landed her there. I couldn’t help but wonder though, just how bad things had gotten before she was sentenced? As much as I wanted to write my mother off and not give a damn about what happened—the unconditional love pre-programmed since childhood—didn’t allow me to say goodbye.
She yapped on, telling me a million and a half different stories about herself. The women she’d met, the food she ate, the way she felt, looked—it was endless. I went through two more cigarettes before she was done, and even worse than that, she hadn’t taken a breath that whole time. When she talked about what they were doing for her about getting her off drugs to keep her healthy, I tuned in. My mother’s health greatly concerned me and just because I’d turned a blind eye to the drug use I wasn’t unaware of how scary it could be. Unfortunately, that part about rehabilitation only lasted about two minutes before she continued on with the other frivolous topics.
“Well mom, I actually need to get going,” I said when I had the opportunity to get a word in.
“No way, you’re not serious!”
“I am.”
“Damn—fine! But just so you know, I put you down for visitation this Saturday. Once you get here we only get half an hour but you can come anytime that day.”
My feet stopped swaying, my jaw dropped and my cigarette